Sometimes, when Donald Trump loses, he somehow seems to win as well. That may have been the case Thursday when two of the four criminal indictments against the former president appeared, at least momentarily, to turn in opposite directions.
The trial date in his New York hush money case was confirmed to be March 25. Meanwhile, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is bringing the election subversion case in Georgia, took the stand in a misconduct hearing surrounding her personal relationship with a prosecutor on her team. Trump’s lawyers are hoping to get the Georgia case thrown out or at least delayed over Willis’ conduct.
Polling indicates that if Trump had to choose which case to go forward with at the fastest speed, he would most definitely, at this time, choose the New York case over the other ones.
Most Americans just don’t think that the New York charges are all that serious. In fact, only 32% of voters said they were very serious in a Quinnipiac University poll taken toward the end of last year.
This shouldn’t be all that surprising when you consider that everyone has long known about Trump’s supposed relationship with Stormy Daniels, which is a big part of New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg’s case. The idea that Trump would be involved in paying off an adult film star, even if illegally, probably doesn’t shock that many people.
On the other hand, the same Quinnipiac polling revealed that 54% of voters said the charges in the Georgia case over Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 defeat in the state were very serious. This lines up with what we know about how the American public feels more broadly. We have a lot of data from after the 2020 election when Trump refused to concede and tried to overturn his loss to Joe Biden. Voter opinion of him slid during that period.
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